Any one into Ham Radio?

[salbahis]

CQ CQ CQ Any one into Ham Radio? DE DW7LFU

[mangoako]

Here from DU1.  73!

[salbahis]

Here from DU1.  73!

QSL sir, whats your callsign?

[brayski]

DW7LFU DE KD2MBU AR

[Talibong]

Hi, I once was infected with a Ham virus. I choose to stay traditional with the hobby and I make my own antenna.

When will be the next Hamvention ?


 73

[adroth]

Let's include other members of the forum's FB extension

https://www.facebook.com/groups/rpdefense/permalink/2335866646499169/

[girder]

I've been hoping to get into ham radio for a while now, for disaster preparedness purposes. Though so far I'm limited to just shortwave listening as I learn the basics.

[brayski]

so what are the stuff you guys have in your radio shack?

@girder, what frequency do you listen to most of the time?

@talibong, i also stayed with the traditional, the good ol rag chewing and sometimes cw, coz my morse code is rusty and can only do 5-10 wpm. never did tried rtty and other modes. i do have a radio capable of d-star, never really had the time to tinker with it. building an antenna is the fun part of the hobby, finding that perfect antenna that meet your needs.

not really sure when is the next hamvention, i think that was in june or was it may? not really sure

[Talibong]

Hi, my active rig at the moment are Icom R72 (receiver), FT-857 and FT-817 for my rapid deployment Go-box..my Go-box won 1st prize on the 2017 PARA contest  HF category. It is so light and weighs less that 7 kilos, it got homebrew antenna 9:1 end-fed (fits in the pocket) 10 amps lithium external batt and 20 watts folding solar panel. I can carry the whole thing riding on a motorcycle ;-)

73

[girder]

@brayski

I generally scan the airwaves for whatever I can pick up, preferably foreign stations. The best listening I've been able to do was when I brought my set (Tecsun PL-600 with an attachable wire antenna) to Sulu a few months back. Managed to pick up English, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Malaysian, Mongolian, Pashto, Persian, Vietnamese, (North) Korean, Indonesian & Uyghur language broadcasts.

Shortwave Schedule is your friend when it comes to trying to ID foreign language broadcasts. Thankfully you can now get some 4G signals in Jolo these days.

While I'm in Metro Manila the only signals I usually pick up are just from Chinese stations.

In terms of transceivers I just have a Baofeng UV-82, with an added Nagoya antenna.

[brayski]

@talibong
i once made a go bag myself during my airsoft days, i put in my Icom IC-706mk2G in it with a small lead battery in it. used mostly the VHF and UHF frequencies with a dual freq antenna. for HF i had an end fed wire antenna that fit the bag pocket of the bag just in case i just want to go in the air and make contacts. also got a home brew antenna tuner to make my radio happy and don’t go overheating on me. sometimes i have the straight key as well to go with it. it was not that heavy, its manageable, its a backpack style.
now the IC-706mk2G is part of the shack, it’s connected to an amplifier and antenna tuner for the HF band. i dont use the 50hz frequencies coz i don't have the proper antenna yet and propagation on that frequencies are not that good yet. the VHF/UHF is hooked up to a home brew dual band dipole antenna that’s horizontally polarized coz i do SSB and CW in VHF here in my area, pretty quite on the UHF side as far as SSB and CW is concerned. for FM on VHF/UHF i use my other old rigs, Icom IC-28H for 144mhz, Icom IC-38A for 220Mhz, Icom-48A for the 440mhz, and the IC-1200 for the 1200mhz band. yes i’m an Icom freak hahaha. thats the brand i grew up with. it all started with the Icom IC-02AT. also have the Icom ID-880H, i have really tinker with d-star yet, its in the shack but never use it much.

@girder
Tecsun PL-600 is not a bad receiver, just have to get used with the tuning coz it can get noisy.
Baofeng UV-82 are good radios to begin with, just throw away the antenna it came with and you made the right decision to swap it for a nagoya hehehe. the only portable i have right now is an old Icom IC-32AT. big brick of a radio but its a tank.

i live in a studio in an apartment building so my weak point and problem is the antenna, i have to use small antennas just to get my signal out.
how about you guys, do you have restrictions as far as antenna is concerned?

[salbahis]

hows your mk2G? i have mine but the screen is starting to get blurry... hahaha i also have bitx40....

[Talibong]

Hi Brayski, you certainly had a Ham/ Icom virus haha...well go-bag was suppose to be my plan and I even bought a radio backpack for that but when I tried to join the PARA contest there is an extra points if your whole set-up is protected under extreme weather, so I put it in a pseudo-pelican box that fits into my backpack. I have a pocket tuner for this but better to cut your antenna at exact resonance if working mono band (I prefer this)

Lesson I learned on this specially qrp are you really need a good propagation and location (and luck) on SSB  otherwise you only hear then but they can't hear you, you'll have great chance of talking to somebody on CW or PSK31 when you're operating below 10 watts.

I have kept a few rigs that is not in use for several years now, a mint IC-38A, IC02AT and 2GXAT still in a box. 2 working boat anchors TS-520 and FT-101 and the TS-690/S-Line.

Maybe someday will try digital ;-);-)

[brayski]

@ Salbahis
my Mk2G is doing ok, it was running too warm for my taste every time i use it, unlike my IC-718 (i don't have it here with me right now, was sent to the Philippines, its in storage). So i did the internal fan modification, and now it doesn't run as warm as before. What happened to yours?
i’ve always wanna try bitx-40, since i’m on 40meters most of the time the radio is on. i want to assemble one hehehe, i just don't have the time right now, i cant even go to my ships lately

@Talibong
the pseudo-pelican was a great idea, that’s genius! i always see “go-box” advertisements on qst magazine using those used ammo box, “hammo-box” they call it, but i'm just wondering how heavy it can get, but as far as protection is concerned, no question about it, its just gonna be too heavy. my IC-706Mk2G has an AT-180 auto tuner that came with it, didn't use it coz it heavier than the home-brew manual tuner . now that the Mk2G is fixed at the shack, i still don't use the AT-180 hahaha coz i am running an amplifier booster (Midland HF767) and the AT-180 can’t handle over 100watts.
thats the challenge of qrp, have to be specific on the frequency you want to work with, and tune your rig to that specific band.
speaking of tuning, what do you use to check your swr? an antenna analyzer or the swr meter?

@girder
ever tried satellite communications? the baofengs are light and can be used for this, just have a dual band yagi, small enough for you to hand held it and point upwards to the sky in the direction of the satellite. also try “moon bouncing” your signal

[girder]

Never thought of it before. When I started I was just thinking of having a way to communicate in case the mobile coverage goes down. (I stopped subscribing to landline years ago. Lousy connection in my building, anyway.) I was planning on learning the basics and then working my way up to a larger set (maybe a second hand vintage one). Though since I live in a condominium where to put an antenna is a bit of an issue.
 
Back in the 90s my family and relatives used to have sets at home to communicate between Zamboanga & Sulu and Manila & Samar. I was always impressed by the range on those things. Sadly no one I know keeps them anymore, so no more radio communications in case of emergency.

I have been reading about software-defined radio (SDR), though. Might make for an interesting option since I'm usually next a computer trying to ID broadcasts I pick up.